Here is a two page spread from the Firefly story by Zoë Tucker. I started to do the whole spread in color but I really liked the black and white sketch that I did, especially after I blew it up to actual book size. I tweaked the sketch to a final drawing and added the firefly and some creatures and this is my mixed color and B&W version.
I will probably finish the color version another time…..
I wish all the Mom’s out there a healthy and Happy Mother’s Day.
Aka lightning bug…..Here’s a happy camper….
This past week was Poses week. I revamped my character again. I actually like trying different things to see what works. Different approaches, different color palettes. Shake things up a bit. This course is for portfolio building so why not push things harder to see where I can go with it?
The color palette for this group was picked by my 4 year old grandson. I emailed the family and I did the girls’ choice last week. This week it was CJ’s turn. The glasses last week were Julian’s when he used to wear them.
All 5 of these fireflies were done in my Soul Journal that John bought for me as a Mother’s Day gift, several years ago, from Innovative Journaling. It’s a leather journal that is refillable. I can put two refills in it which means I can put two different types of paper in there. It’s 5.5 x 8.5 which is a nice size to work on.
I did all 5 on their own page. The paper is Arches text wove and it handles wet media nicely. I’ve used watercolor and acrylic on this paper as well.
I didn’t think I would say this but I am really enjoying this technique. It’s very liberating. No rules, just drawing with the brush pen what I feel the watercolor marks are telling me to do. I may get a few more pages ready in my sketchbook so I can do more. In the mean time I still have some other stuff to get done but the nice thing is I can take a break and watch TV and do these type of flowers.
I love working in Square sketchbooks. This one is actually a square Moleskine I found somewhere. I don’t remember where I purchased it. The paper isn’t the best for wet media so I only use the one side but that’s ok because I have been able to do some surprising projects in it, most of the using techniques from Carla Sonheim’s classes, which can be pretty messy.
This one is actually a Pam Garrison exercise but Joanne Sharpe does something similar. I went rogue by using a brush fountain pen.
Another small sketch with watercolor and random flowers….original is 4×6.
One of the splashes of paint reminded me of the pink lady orchids that I saw in the wild in New York many years ago. One of those unexpected gifts that Karma gives you….
I was on a Zoom this evening with Carla Sonheim and a few other artists. Carla had some flowers that she encouraged us to draw via blind contours and I randomly placed them around the page. We were encouraged to use whatever media we wanted. I used a Caran D’Ache Neocolor II black water-soluble crayon.
I then colored them in with watercolor and used ultramarine blue washed around them. I just played with the various mediums, adding paint pens and other media. Then I scanned it in and tweaked it some more on Procreate. I did this all while making homemade candy for Easter. It was quite full day.
And yep, I printed it out on a 4×6 postcard to mail to my mom. No kitties today, just flowers.
Well I finished the Valentine’s book and I am on to the next holiday. I don’t know if St Patrick’s Day is technically a holiday but my mom will like the Irish post cards.
Although I am part Irish, I don’t understand the need to party and get wasted on St Patrick’s Day, which seems to have escalated from a day of corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, Irish Soda bread and Irish potatoes to a month long celebration of partying and parades. Living in Florida, it can be a looooonngggg March with the revelers, then piling partying snowbirds and spring breakers on top of that. We pretty much sit back and watch the show.
This month’s sketchbook will lean toward the “green,” but I will probably mix things up a bit with the subject matter and I will experiment with some varied media and techniques.
The sketchbook page was damaged during the process of creating this page. The background is watercolor but I had to use acrylic to “seal” the torn spots which actually gave it texture.
This little guy is from my morning pages. The color pattern was derived from the random shapes on the page.
Randy is Shamrock Eater. He thinks that 4 leafed clovers are especially tasty. He’ll also eat asparagus and spinach. He likes gardens….for dinner.
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